At a children’s role-playing theme park in Seoul, 23-year-old Park Woo-joo is on a very adult mission: the university-educated but unemployed South Korean is searching for his future career.
Part of a Mexican-owned global chain, KidZania typically offers young children the chance to play dozens of different jobs, from firefighter to dentist, at huge indoor centers, including one in Seoul that draws millions of visitors each year.
But KidZania South Korea is pioneering a new use for its Seoul location: helping unemployed youth cope with the challenges they face in real life at nostalgic, wildly popular, adults-only events.
Despite labor shortages linked to an extremely low birth rate, youth unemployment remains stubbornly high in South Korea — a result, experts say, of a mismatch between highly educated young people and the realities of the country’s labor market.
Park has a degree in business administration but has been unable to find a job he wants, so last month he was one of about 500 people who bought tickets to a “Kids-ania” event for adults – the name is a wordplay in Korean that actually means “no kids.”
At the vast indoor theme park, where people dressed as police officers and Supreme Court judges were role-playing in specially built areas, Park told AFP he was looking forward to “as much of the experience as possible”.
He’s hoping that, after examining a number of potential careers, he might hit a “light-bulb” and know what he wants to do with his life.
“I think it’s a good way for unemployed people to enjoy and learn at the same time,” he told AFP.
A tour of nostalgia
These programmes for adults were the brainchild of KidZania South Korea president Kang Jae-hyung, who told AFP he wanted to help the young people who visited the park when it first opened in 2010.
“The children who first came here were seven years old and now they are 21 years old,” Kang said.
He said his colleagues were skeptical about the idea and he initially faced internal resistance, but tickets for the first event sold out immediately.
Kang said many young South Korean adults should awaken their innate sense of joy and not take working life too seriously.
“I just want them to remember what they wanted to do when they were young,” Kang said, adding that it’s important “not to crush kids’ dreams.”
Lee Soo-min, 20, has fond memories of visiting KidZania – and said she found the place the same when she returned a decade later.
“But it seems I have changed”, she said.
Standing in line at a radio studio to become a DJ, Lee, a university student, told AFP she was trying to think about what she should do with her life: “Now, I am starting to take these experiences seriously.”
Aspirations versus reality
With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, South Korea’s population has long been in decline.
According to official projections, the country’s working-age population will begin declining from 2028, and many sectors of the economy, from agriculture to restaurants and care homes, are already suffering from widespread labour shortages, with immigration heavily restricted.
Still, the country’s youth unemployment rate remains persistently high, currently at 6.2 percent, more than double the overall rate of 2.9 percent, according to official data.
The number of “resting” young people — those neither employed nor actively looking for work — rose to 426,000 last month, the second-highest rate since records began in 2003. It was the highest rate during the pandemic.
The problem, experts say, is that young South Koreans prefer not to work rather than work in a job that is considered unpopular or below their level.
For example, official data shows that nearly half of South Korea’s young people are reluctant to join small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – even though such businesses contribute about 98 percent to the economy, with high-profile corporations such as Samsung contributing just 2 percent.
Hwang Gwang-hoon, an associate research fellow at the Korea Employment Information Service, said this mismatch between the aspirations of highly educated youth and the realities of the labor market “leads to a gradual deepening of unemployment among highly educated youth.”
South Korea has turned to automation of production lines and even CCTV to ease labour shortages – for example, many convenience stores are now unmanned – but Hwang said the country also needs to create more “quality jobs”, particularly in SMEs.
According to KidZania’s Kang, unemployed youths must let go of the fear and embarrassment that are holding them back in the job market.
He said, “Do what you want to do. Don’t be self-conscious.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
